In my last post here on Feminism and Religion I unpacked the three primary understandings of atonement theology as well as some of the feminist critiques of those understandings. In this post I’d like to focus a bit more on how the relationship between power and violence influences how Christian women view the atonement.
In her book, On Violence, Hannah Arendt puts forth a new analysis of the relationship between power and violence. Arendt’s analysis, though primarily focused around concepts of the potential for worldwide destruction and war following major global occurrences such as the Second World War and the struggles for civil and women’s rights within the United States context, supplies an interesting framework with which to consider this relationship as it relates to domestic violence. Continue reading “A Middle: Understanding the Relationship between Violence and Power by Katie M. Deaver”
Recently I need to take a deep breath every time I glance at the news headlines. There are terror attacks and military conflicts. People kill each other and cause each other immense suffering. The worst thing is that so many of these conflicts are between people who have lived side by side for centuries: between related ethnic groups or neighbouring people.
I wish that in our pursuit of finding cures for illnesses we would do more as a collective species to prevent the causes, sometimes environmental ones. Why do we vote for people to make decisions that represent us but that we would never in a million years agree to? Bombs and the consequences of them raise questions of health and power. In the Yoga Sutras, 2.30, we read that “Yama consists of non-violence, non-lying, non-stealing, appropriate use of vital energy, and non-possessiveness.” The yamas are our social restraints. They are a negation of behaviors we might usually partake in.
I have been thinking frequently about trauma, about what perpetuates suffering and what supports the arduous journey of transforming traumatic experiences, especially in the aftermath of traumas of human design. The violation of bodies lies at the heart of such traumas. Thus, how we practice behaviors that refuse to denigrate bodies are critical and necessary to alleviating suffering and promoting the body’s dignity.
On an unexpected weekend in June, the city of Orlando was rocked with a string of violent attacks that created an earthquake of shock, grief, fear, hurt, and a sadness too terrible to name, that all ends of our globe have felt. It started with the shocking shooting of the young YouTube celebrity, The Voice reality contestant and established musician 22-year-old 
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